Brooke Josephson’s “Mr. Fix It (Rocky G Remix)”

Synthesizers that are as large and foreboding as city skyscrapers tower over us intimidatingly as we wander the opening salvo that greets us in the first few bars of Brooke Josephson’s “Mr. Fix It (Rocky G Remix).” The melody is shapeless at first and palatable to Josephson’s bittersweet croon. She molds it under her smoky verses and relies only on Rocky G’s jarring skills behind the soundboard to convey all of the immense passion in her words. The music overpowers us, tosses the rhythm in every direction and recoils as the dexterous drumming becomes too incendiary to contain.

The hook in “Mr. Fix It (Rocky G Remix)” is throbbing and inescapable once we make contact with the chorus. Buried underneath the bass-heavy sonic ribbonry that is holding everything together is a sly transition between the beats that is being generated by the grittiness of the mix. Rocky G really pulls out all the stops to give this song the full weight of her capabilities, which have already been proven to be some of the most intriguing in all of the industry. There glare of the synthesizers is deflected by the robotic nature of the drums, and as experimental as this track can get it never deviates from familiar pop territory.

Echoing harmonies give way to big textured grooves as we move towards the second act of this remix, and again our attention is brought back to the searing bassline that strutted so confidently when we started the song. Rocky G’s ultra-physical mix is especially unforgiving as we lumber into the fever pitch of the track, which arguably arrives around the 2:30 mark. This treatment of the chorus is much more cutting and riddled with high-end groove than the first, but it doesn’t devolve into atonal white noise. Josephson’s singing is like a cool breeze amidst all of the sweltering melodies that are surrounding us, but neither she nor the music ever gets too out of control.

In the accompanying music video for “Mr. Fix It (Rocky G Remix),” the visuals are much more stripped down and simple in comparison to the mammoth beats that they’re meant to compliment, and the contrast between the two is both beautiful and surreal. There’s nothing predictable about the style of pop music that we’ve come to know Brooke Josephson for, but with Rocky G taking charge of the controls we get to really see her at her most uncaged and uninhibited by the restrictions of traditional song structures.

The gallop of the drumming in this song will haunt you long after the music ceases to play, and I’ve found in the days that have passed since first acquiring my copy of “Mr. Fix It (Rocky G Remix)” that it only becomes more enigmatic and evocative with each listen. There’s a lot of dimensions to this song that start with the production quality and finish somewhere in the harmonies that Josephson conjures out of thin air and without warning. Whether you’ve been following either of them for a while or are just now discovering their work through this collaboration, I highly recommend checking out what Brooke Josephson and producer Rocky G are bringing to the table these days, namely in this stunning new remix.